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The Holy Grail of Parenting

Every parent will tell you being a parent comes with its ups and downs. These two parents are no different. Specifically as it relates to sleep training, we’ve had our successes and our failures. Ellie was sleeping through the night at three months and we were pretty damn stoked about that…and then three and a half months came! In all seriousness, she’s had her moments of sleeping through the night and then her moments of not. Brian and I have had seemingly endless conversations about this. So many of our friends told us about how they finally let their kids cry it out and the end result was heavenly. While I respect and appreciate every parents methodology, crying it out was not for me.

Every time Ellie got up in the middle of the night, I felt like she was either in pain or needed comfort. Now that her communication skills have grown significantly, we’ve reached what I consider to be one of the Holy Grails of parenting: not only does Ellie sleep through the night, we lay her down in her crib with her blanket and teddy bear. We give her kisses and we tell her “night night” and she lays down and goes to sleep. It’s epic. I almost don’t even want to say it out loud because I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m so effing excited I can barely hold it in.

I wanted to share this news because I know a lot of other parents struggle with the sleep thing. It’s no fun to go a year and a half of your life not knowing if you’re going to be up in the middle of the night or not. As first time parents, the crazy thought that it may never change comes to mind sometimes. This was especially the case for us with the prospect of a second child on the way. Brian kept saying “Lace, we can’t be doing this nighttime routine with Ellie when we have an infant in the house.” It was almost as if some universal force stepped in and said “you’re right,” waved a magic want and poof, Ellie goes to bed on her own and sleeps through the night. If you’re going through sleep troubles as a parent, there will come a time when they will subside. I’m sure it’s different for every child and I have no golden nugget of advice, other than hang in there, stay patient, and do whatever you think is right. At the end of the day, you’re a good parent who loves their child and that’s what really matters.

I don’t know that I believe everything happens for a reason, but I’m very grateful this happened. It was impeccable timing and for that I do thank God – whatever or whoever that may be. And God, I also make one additional request that we have no reversions, please pretty please, or I will feel extremely guilty for sharing this news.